Twig

by wildbow

  “Okay,” Drake said. Then, contradicting himself, he said, “I don’t know where to go. The others, they’re going to show up here, expecting to get to work for the day, they’re going to need answers, and I’m supposed to tell them they can’t stay in Lugh?”

  “Lie,” I said. “Tell them something that will scare them. Mix it with something embarrassing. That you were here, together, messing around, naked, when it started to push its way out from under the hatch. That it spoke. Something. Tell them you panicked, that you’re out.”

  “Or tell them the truth,” Lillian said, giving me a look. “Because the truth should be enough. This isn’t for tampering with.”

  The pair looked so defeated. My finger touched the ring at my thumb.

  “We’ll give you funds,” I said. We didn’t have much on us. “We’ll—heck, what’s a nearby city? A day or two of travel away?”

  “Tynewear,” Jamie said.

  “Go to Tynewear. The post office, a week and a half from now, we’ll courier you a package. Funds enough to get you all started again,” I said. I looked at Jamie. “Paper, pen?”

  He provided both, tearing a page out of a small notebook.

  I wrote down a series of passwords. I reached out, “So you know the courier is the real deal. And so nobody else happens to get those funds.”

  “Why more than one password?” Drake asked, without moving to take the paper.

  “Because the funds come with a condition. You don’t settle down in Tynewear. You don’t resume work, you don’t start to wonder if you should start working on this again, because you won’t be in one place for long enough to get a lab set up. When the funds arrive, they’ll come with another location. If you want more funds, you’ll have to relocate again. At least three times.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that, either we’ll give you a means of communicating with us, we’ll find a way of checking on you, or I’ll give you another series of locations. Whatever happens, you’ll be together, you’ll get a chance to explore the world, experience things.”

  My eyes were locked onto Candy’s by the time I’d finished talking.

  It was a good offer, but somehow, by the time I finished talking, she looked terribly sad.

  “We’ll need the book, too. The materials,” Gordon said.

  I expected that to make them buck, fight a little. To ask if this was a trap, second guess our intentions.

  But they weren’t that. They weren’t soldiers or spies. They hadn’t raised themselves on a battlefield or anything like that.

  They were survivors, a little lost, who’d thought they had found direction, something to strive for.

  Drake reached out for the paper. He didn’t take it, hesitating, his fingers almost but not quite making contact with the paper.

  A buck? Resistance?

  “I should tell you about the others, too,” he said.

  “Others?” Gordon asked. “You said there was the one group.”

  “There is. One group we know of, that we’ve met. But the soldier who comes to check on things, he made comments. He talked about our setup, compared to the others. He was recommending burying the thing, because it was easier to dig a deep, wide hole and trust the surrounding ground than it was to build a container strong enough, and he talked about how the others had gone about it. One of them used a well. The other group did the digging themselves. The stitched we used to do the dig, we got them from that group, he brought them over.”

  “Two groups?” Lillian asked. “That are this far along? Or farther along?”

  “At least two,” Gordon remarked.

  “That’s all I know,” Drake said. He took the paper from me. “I’d tell you more if I knew anything.”

  “Because of what you said about pride, about wanting to be the ones to succeed? If you’re backing out of this, then they should have to too?” I asked.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do,” he said, giving me a look.

  “Or that,” I said.

  “Do you know when he’s due to come? The guy who visits?” Gordon asked.

  “Five days from now,” Drake said. “He arrives in a carriage, sometimes with armed guys who stay in or on the vehicle. Usually later in the evening.”

  Gordon nodded.

  Five days. With Gordon in the state he was in, it felt like an eternity.

  Drake folded the paper carefully and put it into a pocket.

  Candy, meanwhile, had turned to face Lillian.

  “You came for me, because my parents asked, you said.”

  Lillian nodded. She looked almost ashamed.

  “What are you going to tell them?”

  “I don’t know,” Lillian said.

  Candy nodded. From her reaction, I suspected any definitive answer would have been met with suspicion, or picked apart.

  “Is he nice?” Lillian asked, her voice quiet. “Worth spending the next forty years with?”

  “He’s the first person who ever listened to me, and I needed someone to listen to me more than anything,” Candy said. “He could have been the biggest asshole on the planet, and I would have stayed with him just for that alone.”

  Lillian nodded, as if this made all the sense in the world.

  “It’s a good thing he’s nice,” Candy said. She broke into a smile for what might have been the first time since we’d interrupted her moment.

  I could see the look on Lillian’s face. The relief, the joy.

  It wasn’t the right decision, if she wanted that black coat. Committing to a longer-term exchange of mail with fugitives was dangerous for the Lambs.

  I imagined, seeing that smile from Candy, Lillian imagined it was worth it.

  “What’s your name?” Lillian asked. “You gave up the one your parents gave you.”

  “Emily. It’s dumb, I know. Looking like I do, I should have chosen something tougher.”

  “It’s nice,” Lillian said. “It’s a good name.”

  There was a brief exchange of plans and expectations, Drake and Emily would be meeting with their group to share the news, to lie or tell the truth, whatever it took to convey how bad an idea it was to stay with the project.

  We would have to loop back before leaving, to make sure things were done. It was good that it wasn’t a very portable experiment.

  Plans made, we departed. Two experiments, at the very least, to track down. Five days could be a dangerous length of time to delay, for Gordon’s sake, and because the people in charge could well be invested enough in the project to be watching over the situation, checking in more discreetly. If they caught on before we caught sight of them, then we would be on the back foot.

  Burning the building was the best way to make it difficult to get to the hole in the ground with the primordial inside and to make it difficult to resurrect the project, but it would get attention. Hopefully the sort of attention we could take advantage of.

  “She’s good for you,” Gordon said.

  I looked over, then looked around. I’d been lost in thought, trying to figure out the best way forward. Lillian was hanging back, talking to Jamie.

  I thought of being crammed in a dark corner, Lillian squished against me. My heart picked up a little. I found myself smiling a little.

  I felt guilty about it too, as Jamie glanced at me.

  “Just saying,” Gordon said, very casually.

  “Sure,” I said, equally casually.

  He ventured, “Hearing Lillian express just how bad of a situation this is, I’m more worried than usual.”

  “Entirely reasonable.”

  “We may need to call in help. The others might not be so cooperative, and if Mauer’s involved, we can expect resistance. Coordinated resistance. Normally, with the full complement of Lambs, I’d say we could manage, but I’m not at my best, and we don’t have the full complement of Lambs.”

  “…Which makes things complicated,” I said. “If we call in that much-needed help and they follow up on the
most basic leads, which they are, they’re going to find Drake and Emily.”

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I looked back at Lillian. “I know you’ve been advocating telling the truth, but if time really is of the essence…”

  “If she draws the conclusion on her own, we won’t lie to her,” Gordon said, firmly. “If she doesn’t realize that we’d be setting the Academy on their heels, we don’t tell her.”

  I nodded. She would resist, or even if she didn’t, it would poison things.

  “I don’t like it,” I said. “We can hope they get enough of a head start, and maybe make them harder to find, but… I don’t like it.”

  “Yeah,” Gordon said. “Me either.”

  Previous Next

  Bleeding Edge—8.12

  Ratface Cecil was busy eating. Another bowl of ambiguous slop. He’d tripled down on the bodyguards, but half of those bodyguards were now eating.

  The rain continued to pour, and even though the sun was supposed to be high in the sky, the intermittent cloud cover and the wind blowing across Lugh meant that the water that collected in the darker folds of our clothing was freezing or partially freezing.

  The lack of light, however, helped to conceal us as we crept along a rooftop, across the street from the man.

  “Lillian,” Gordon said, holding out a hand. Lillian fished in her bag, and produced a metal tube. She handed it to me. Rather than hand it to Gordon, I held it up and looked down the length of it, peering at the back of Ratface’s head. There were grooves spiraling down the interior.

  Gordon reached out to take it from me, and the end of the thing poked at my eye socket.

  “Jerk,” I said.

  “Let’s not waste time,” he said. “I want to get back.”

  “Do you even have the lung capacity to do anything with that?” I asked. I looked at Lillian, who had a bottle out, placed on the top of her bag, a syringe already filled with fluid, which she was now packing into a small feathered projectile. “Does he?”

  “Cardiac and respiratory systems are linked. If he’s struggling, then it makes sense that he wouldn’t have—”

  “I’m fine,” Gordon said. “Right Hubris?”

  The dog didn’t react. Its eyes and ears were focused in the direction of Ratface.

  “Exactly,” Gordon said.

  “The fact that you named him Hubris is really fitting here,” I remarked.

  “And you’re a terrible shot,” Gordon said. “A terrible shot with tiny lungs in a tiny body.”

  “Wow, you get so mean when you’re dying,” I said.

  His expression was stone-still for just long enough to wonder if I’d pushed the wrong button. Then he smirked.

  “If you weren’t sure, I could do it,” Jamie volunteered. He was holding Lil’s bag steady so it didn’t fall and slide off the roof.

  “You might be able to,” Gordon acknowledged. “But you’re not sure?”

  “No.”

  “Right,” Gordon said. Lil handed out the dart. I took it and handed it to Gordon. Gordon placed it in the pipe, “Well, I’m mostly sure. Worst case scenario, keep your heads down.”

  “Wind is predominantly coming from the southeast,” Jamie said. “You can see the waxed paper by the store next door, a good gauge if you want to get a sense of what the air currents are like down there.”

  “Didn’t see that,” Gordon said. “Thanks.”

  “He’s talking to the guy to his left,” I pointed out. “Bodyguard number three, counting from left to right. The guy is doing most of the talking. Either it’s a long speech, or he’s going to respond. Watch that you don’t shoot as he twists around to look at the guy.”

  “Is that the sort of thing that goes through your head when you’re the one with the blowpipe, or when you’re in a fight?”

  “It’s one of the sorts of things that goes through my mind,” I said.

  “You think too much, Sy,” Gordon said, sighing. He brought the blowpipe to his lips and settled down against the roof. Hubris, beside him, did much the same, mirroring his actions, furry chin on the peak of the roof.

  Gordon’s criticism left me torn. A part of me, of course, was loyal to the mission. We wanted to succeed, do a good job, maintain our reputation, and everything else. But another part of me really wanted him to miss. Extra points if he missed because I was right.

  Gordon huffed out a sharp breath. The dart disappeared into rain and darkness.

  Ratface leaped out of his seat, knocking his bowl over the other side of the counter. Bodyguards and bystander alike twisted, staring.

  Ratface backed away, turning, his head craning. I saw him pull the dart from the back of his shoulder.

  If he’d twisted around to talk to that bodyguard of his, then Gordon would so have missed.

  “Come on,” I said. I pushed away from the peak of the roof. I let myself slide down wet and icy shingles. I had to steer myself a bit to keep on course, as I slid right off the roof, and onto a stack of crates. My feet banged against the top crate. Momentum still carrying me, I skipped down the boxes, and my feet skidded on ice and mud. I managed to keep my footing as I came to a stop. A few people who were standing around stared.

  I turned around, and I saw that all three of the others, with the exception of Hubris, who now stood on the top crate, were only halfway down the roof, carefully easing their way down.

  I sighed.

  While they climbed down, making the uncomfortable three-foot hop down from the roof’s edge to the topmost crate, which was a good twelve feet up off the ground, I circled around the building.

  Ratface was standing in the middle of the street, showing the dart to his bodyguards, who had surrounded him.

  His eyes roved as he talked, and they locked onto me.

  He gestured, and I raised a hand, palm up in a gesture more blatant than the Lambs’ usual.

  He said something, then stopped, his bodyguards settling to stand beside him as well.

  I pointed at him, then beckoned.

  He was wary, but he approached. By the time he reached me, the other Lambs did too.

  “This was you?”

  “You had bodyguards,” I said. “This is more expedient.”

  “You could have approached and asked to talk.”

  I shook my head. “Your body language was defensive. You were all hunched over, over that bowl of whatever you were eating.”

  “Curry.”

  “Whatever it was. Too guarded, and you’d want to flex a bit, which would only get in the way.”

  He gave me an incredulous look. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh,” I said I reached under my hood to scratch my head. “You got scared last night. Felt powerless. Not a good look, for someone who has to do business in a place like Lugh. Given the choice between a cooperative, friendly chat, and retaking that image, that power? You would have taken the second option. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t.”

  He gave me a long, searching look.

  “You are,” he said. “The most unpleasant little child I’ve ever had to deal with.”

  I smiled. So I was right.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “We’re running down leads. A man named Drake. Dark scales, tattoos, he’s tall, th—”

  “I know the one.”

  “You’re the best supplier in the area. You supplied to him. Food, specific materials.”

  Ratface narrowed his eyes.

  “Who else did you supply similar things to? They would’ve been recurring customers.”

  “Sharing details of my clients, some of whom are working outside the confines of the law of the Crown States of America, would be a very good way to lose their business,” he said.

  “True,” I said.

  “I’m the best supplier in Lugh for a reason,” he said. “Being talkative isn’t it.”

  I nodded. “Okay, sorry to bother you.”

  I turned, gesturing at the others. Toge
ther, we turned to leave.

  “That dart. What did you shoot me with?”

  “Poison,” I said. “She has the antidote.”

  “Like with Giles’ men?”

  “Like with Giles’ men.”

  “Except that was a bluff, apparently. The one is alive, still.”

  “We poisoned two.”

  “You shot one of the two,” Ratface said. His face was etched with lines of stress, disgust, and anger.

  “We’ll stop in after we follow up on some other leads,” I said. “You’ll be feeling the effects by then, and you’ll tell us what we need to know.”

  Control, power. The more I thought about it, the more I came to suspect that Drake and Emily wouldn’t have been able to make it in this city, after they’d reached a certain level of status. Strength and the upper hand were too important when it came to speaking the city’s language, and they were too soft.

  “The crew of kids that Drake was a part of?” Ratface asked. At my nod, he said, “I can think of a number of others. Seven hereabouts, all wanting medusozoa.”

  “Jellyfish,” Lillian said. “For a model nerve net to build off of, probably.”

  “I don’t ask for details, but it catches the eye when that appears on the order form,” Ratface said.

  “Two or three of those groups would have shifted buying patterns,” I said.

  “More food,” Lillian said. “Protein rich, salts, minerals?”

  “Yeah,” Ratface said. “Four of the groups are asking for a restock on the jellyfish every month or so, one is doing it at a good rate, too. But three, like you said, shifted focus. Alfred’s group, Old Harding’s, and the Ridgewell group.”

  “Details,” I said.

  “Alfred’s group, the one Drake’s a part of. Kids, or only a few years past being kids. Half the time, they don’t have all the money to pay for what they’ve ordered, but they scratch together the money in the end, even if it’s late. Driven, if distracted half the time by each other. Emotional, heads in the clouds. I see a lot like them. They never last.”

  I nodded.

  “Old Harding, I’ve been working with that crusty asshole since I started, and he had a decade on me even then. Academy trained, up to a point, got his white coat, tried for a gray one, couldn’t find it in him to do it. So he came over here and he set up shop. Tries one thing for five, ten, or fifteen years, whatever he thinks is going to be most profitable, then switches it up. Only barely keeps his head above water. This new project is his current focus. He has people working with him, even, which never used to happen.”